Every week, we answer real questions from readers like you, This is another installment in the Dear Chicken Farmer series.

If you’ve got a question about chicken or chicken farming in Canada, send us a note to Dear Chicken Farmer and we’ll do our best to answer it.

Dear Chicken Farmer:

Is bruised chicken okay to eat?

No, it isn’t harmful to eat as long as the chicken is cooked to the proper internal temperature (74ºC for parts and 85ºC for a whole chicken). If it happens often, I would consider talking to your grocer about it. You should also know that blood spots or bruises are not a result of how the chickens are raised.

Check back next week for more questions and answers, or take a look at past questions.

Every week, we answer real questions from readers like you, This is another installment in the Dear Chicken Farmer series.

Every week, we answer real questions from readers like you, This is another installment in the Dear Chicken Farmer series. If you’ve got a question about chicken or chicken farming in Canada, send us a note to Dear Chicken Farmer and we’ll do our best to answer it. Dear Chicken Farmer: I have several questions about chicken:

1. What should we know about chicken?
2. Where is chicken produced in Canada?
3. Under what conditions are chickens raised?
4. How is chicken processed?
5. How is chicken transported?

This is another installment in our ongoing series Dear Chicken Farmer. Real questions asked by Canadians and answered by the Chicken Farmers of Canada. If you’ve got a question about chicken or chicken farming in Canada, send us a note to Dear Chicken Farmer and we’ll do our best to answer it. Dear Chicken Farmer: We bought a fresh chicken, approximately 10 lbs, and put it in the freezer. It took one and a half days to thaw in the refrigerator and when we cooked and cut it, the breast meat along the bone was green. Should we be concerned? It’s hard to say definitively what caused the meat to be green, but it was likely from a damaged blood vessel. This isn’t a food safety concern, even if you ate it. It’s something that rarely happens and cannot always be detected at the processing plant. It’s kind of like a bruise, except that it’s from a high level of exertion like strong flapping of the wings. Chickens in the barn will flap their wings and perhaps that chicken did it hard enough to damage a blood vessel. If this ever happens again, you should take the chicken back to the grocery store or butcher for an exchange. Check back next week for more questions and answers.

This is another installment in our ongoing series Dear Chicken Farmer - real questions asked by Canadians and answered by the Chicken Farmers of Canada. If you’ve got a question about chicken or chicken farming in Canada, send us a note to Dear Chicken Farmer and we’ll do our best to answer it. Dear Chicken Farmer: I have an ongoing problem with roasting free-range chickens. I brine them and roast them on a rack until the internal temperature reaches 170ºF. Despite reaching the doneness temperature, there is always red around the joints. I am reluctant to roast them to 190ºF or so as they would be so dry. What should I do? Regardless of whether your chicken is free-range or traditionally raised, you should be roasting a whole chicken to 185ºF or 85ºC. It won’t dry out, especially with the brine. Our cooking temperature for whole chickens is the same as that recommended by Health Canada. We carried out a study about 10 years ago now that indicated that 185 was the appropriate temperature; however, Health Canada is doing some further testing and the temperature might be lowered just slightly. When I cook a whole chicken at home, I do cook it to that temperature. I use a leave-in thermometer while it is cooking and when it reaches 185ºF I take it out of the oven. It hasn’t been dry. You can also try putting lemon halves in the cavity, which helps keep it moist. Check back next week for more questions and answers.

We get real questions about chicken every day from people like you, so we figured we would share some of those real-life questions and answers with you here every week. If you’ve got a question about chicken or chicken farming in Canada, send us a note to Dear Chicken Farmer and we’ll do our best to answer it. Dear Chicken Farmer: Does any of the chicken sold in Canada come from China? Canada does not import any chicken meat from China. In 2007, the four countries of origin for chicken meat imports were, in descending order: the U.S., Brazil, Thailand (cooked product only) and Chile. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is currently examining the Chinese chicken industry in response to import requests, but as yet no veterinary agreements, necessary for the paperwork that accompanies food imports, have been signed. Canada’s chicken industry provides most of the chicken consumed in Canada through a system called “supply management” which matches production to demand to ensure a consistent amount of high quality chicken is available to consumers. Check back next week for more questions and answers.